The Fordson Tractor Pages Forum

Hi, on doing a DVLA search on registrations close to my 1956 Major 413ABH (Luton Bucks) I found a Major 417ABH registered, I also came across an old photo on T. H. Whites (Agriculture) website of a Major 418ABH not registered with DVLA, the reason for my search is I do not have any history on 413,s supplying dealer, I was thinking perhaps all these tractors may have come from the same dealer if the owner of 417 knows any info or if anyone can throw any light I would be most grateful , cheers.

Do you live in the Bucks registration* area (i.e. is the tractor still on home turf) ? If not a line to one of the areas tractor clubs for their newsletter might bear fruit, if you are local to and already in such a club then a letter to the various national tractor comics (sorry magazines) with a photo might find someone who knows its history.

Have you been onto the Bucks archive or records office which would hold the original registration records ? (would have been the County Council in those long ago rose tinted days buff or green folding logbooks - before Swansea and its evil henchmen made upsetting aged** tractor and other vehicle owners their prime target ) That might find a link to the original owners then ask in the local pubs.

Failing that have you asked Brian?, not seen him floored by a Fordson specific question yet

Otherwise, "up effluent creek with no cork in the drain hole, a bu%%ered SatNav & without an outboard" territory is where you seem to be located in the absence of a miracle or the right 'old boy' at just the right time............

* I'm assuming its a Bucks reg but if not, whichever CC issued that series.
** read it either way as suits

You may be right and T. H. White sold all those tractors. Back in the day when I worked for J. J. Wright and Sons Ltd we were issued with a block of numbers and plates from the County Council and you worked through that block. Sometimes the first number was used in January but the last might be some months later so it was not possible to date items by their number plates. The plates also went on tractors, combine harvesters and anything else agricultural that needed them.

You might drop a letter to Rory Day at Classic Tractor, they have a correspondent that works for T. H. White.

One day we traded in a NP Super Major for a new Ford Force 5000, around 1970. When the Super was cleaned up and put on the S/H line someone noticed that the number plate on the front was one figure different to the one on the back! Whoever did the PDI picked up the wrong plate from the pile and that tractor had lived at least 8 years with two different numbers.

That also happened with rear tyres because we used to swap wheels around on new tractors. Someone wanted a tractor with Dunlop tyres so they would be swapped from stock tractors, seen tractors on the line with a Dunlop on one side and a Goodyear on the other, you would think someone would have noticed but they did get out onto the farm and in some cases would not be noticed for some time.

Many thanks Rick & Brian will follow up your suggestions, we are in south Oxfordshire and the tractor has been in our village working for the past 50 plus years and in fact only travelled a matter of 1/2 a mile to us when we bought it a couple of months ago , so the last 50 plus years are clear to us its those early years that are unknown,the previous owner tells me his father bought the tractor from Wilders in Reading in the early sixties so with its Bucks reg only changed hands possibly over the border , still got a hunch its one of T.H Whites , again many thanks and maybe I will be able to fill in those early years.

Its a shame Joe Challis who was Wilders last surviving steam ploughing engine driver has now gone, he might have known some of their younger guys who would have worked in the tractor era.

I think your most direct route is probably to find where the county registration records are held, that ought provide a starting point that might help fill in the relatively small gap if you know the last 50 odd years history.

Might also be worth asking the Museum of English Rural Life as a number of dealers records seem to have ended up there - once people realised they might be of more interest than a bonfire in the yard.

If all else fails do what an old friend used to do, just make it up, the only person likley to put you right is just the fellow you are looking for - human nature is such that someone is more likely to not say something if they see the tractor on display and know its history than tell you its wrong if you make something up and put on its history sheet

I've still not looked into mine, I remember as a nipper going with Dad to see it at a carrot cannery in the west of the county somewhere but I really ought to find out while I have the chance.

Best of luck with your quest

Thanks Rick , that's given me a bit to think about, really enjoying having got hold of this tractor as its the same type my dad put me on when I was a young teenager , took me to a field with tractor and a set harrows and off he went and left me to it , finished the job with the lights on thought that was great, he was using a brand new 4000 at the time, its not until now that I think he went through some changes with tractors having started out on granddads farm with the early fordsons in the 40,s , very lucky to have some old photos of dad and granddad working on the farm, allways fordsons , cheers Andy.

Ah, well worth the effort searching Andy

I'm fortunate in that 'my' 1958 E1A Major had been used on the family smallholding since I was 9 or 10, there had been a Standard on steels (which I just remember) before I was outshopped (a week or so before the Major - me 11/4/58, the youngest casting code being the engine block at 14/4/58 and registered April, original log book AWOL so day and previous owners unknown) opinion varies as to the relative conditions of each of us

Between these two was an early, non electric, non hydraulic TVO E27N which was a bitch to start cold, a bitch to start warm and a bitch to start hot, I remember the wrenched fingers and thumbs or backfired knuckles with the accompanying, jeering puffs of white TVO vapour (no matter how much you drained the carb) and not being able to steer it out of the furrow, along with the igominy of trying to extract it and trailing plough when tugging the trip cord failed to lift the plough bodies out of the ground before hitting the treeline . Winter 1963 is well remembered as the ice on the pond was thick enough for Dad to drive over it on the E27N with spud wheels on, to get to a bit usually so wet that man nor beast let alone a tractor could navivgate it, trees which snapped off at, rather than being pulled out by. the root were a novelty not seen before and yes it died mid pond, no, brother nor I would slither out to crank it, so an angry Polish person descended from the seat and gingerly made his way to the front, cranked it like it was a Merlin and for what may well have been the only time in its diagreeable life the old bitch started to order first time! As its work was split between ploughing and cultivating the cleared land for Xmas tree planting and clearing what had been untouched since clearfelled for WW1. It escaped cultivation in both wars by being part wet heath and part bog, the wet heath being patchy and underlain by iron pan which was what did for the old E27N finally.

Having scratched away at the iron pan with trailed implements for a few years on what was notionaly the root and veg area, one evening the foreman from the farm behind turned up with his near brand new Super Major and two share digger, I'll never forget the look on Dads face as, roaring fit to bust and with a real firework display from the plough, the Super tore up lump after lump of iron pan, some as big as a dining table, some a couple of feet thick - it took forever to wheelbarrow the managable sized chunks away to the boggiest bits of trackways to infill and excepting one really wet bit he and us subsequently never managed to break through (and is a tractor trap to this day), the rest finally drained.

Anyhow the upshot was going to view a new light blue diesel thing which appeared on a lorry just as I got back from scheool one day, there was a flurry of activity as the old belt pulley was swapped for the new tractors blanking plate and after removal of its rubber bulb horn, the hated E27N departed forever (I do hope she was scrapped, I'd hate to think of anyone else being forced to work with that brute) and YPW 688 became a much loved part of the fabric of our lives. The trailing plough soon went as a 3 furrow cut down to 2 Ransomes joined the Major, trailed cultivator was not replaced for a while and the only bit of E27N going down to that place where bad tractors and good steam loco's were melted down into razor blades I regretted, was the diesel tank being installed eliminating fortnightly trips over to Great Uncles garage at Coltishall to collect 6 square pyramidal topped 5 gallon drums of TVO and returning the empties in a trailer made by Dad and said Uncle from the front axle of an Austin 7 and pulled by an Austin 7 (which was soon to be replaced by a Morris 1000 Traveller) I have just passed the trailer on to an Austin enthusiast as I have neither use nor covered storage for it - amongst plenty else it carried the raw materials for the bungalow Dad built.

Dad has been gone a few years now, Mum is in a care home but I've been trying to keep the place under control in case she decides to come home some day. Many of the Xnas Spruce I recall planting in my early childhood (Dad dug the holes I planted the seedlings) are now life expired and many of the then hardwood saplings which survived 'the firewood treatment' have matured into nice trees, don't think we'll be able to hang on to it for much longer then the the Major will move from part to fully retired to the Bogside home for incurably beloved machinery, where a remnant of the E27N already lives, having for many years acted as spark plug tester the original Magneto sits on a shelf, sometimes I hit its venerable old carcase with a small hammer in recollection of the times it and its pile of associated scrap made my life a misery! Strangely I have no outstanding memories, good, bad, funny or sad, of its successor - like death and taxes she has always been there and done her job quietly without fuss or incident - I guess I owe her a trip to the records office to see if I can fill in her early history like you.

Great stuff Rick!
I have to believe the more we busted our asses growing up the more precious the memories are.

Pat

Well Rick sounds like the EIA made such a difference to everyday life on the farm back them but I guess my granddad may have said the same thing about his early fordsons when he finished with his horses although dad always spoke very fondly of those nags. Thanks for the interesting memories you spoke about a pleasure to read, cheers Andy.

In this one instance maybe Andy, I have driven decent condition TVO E27N's since which would pull like hell, infact I have wondered if their bottom end torque was higher than the diesel - would be an interesting pulling or dyno exercise perhaps

The horse to steam or perhaps even more the horse to tractor days must have been hard for the horsemen, the job must have got a great deal lonelier and while the long hours looking after the horses tack and organising food shoes and everything the early tractors must have been every bit as hard work and with the cold or heat extremes noise and vibration you can sometimes understand why a lot of these old chaps pushed a bike everywhere I've heard many times that they wouldn't or couldn't ride but it was company and better than walking - talk about living in a world with different values.

I do think that the less elite labourers had a better chance of progressing with tractors and maybe had a less strenuous life physically and of course it was open season with the two world wars for ayone who could stand the pace.

Pat I think it may have more to do with a fairly solitary youth without the (IMHO) valueless social and entertainment input later generations have had pumped into them making them mistake it for real life.................

Nice to see some youth getting their hands dirty on your photos earlier